Installing

Installing

Downloads are on the releases page.

Your computer	Take
macOS, Apple Silicon (M1 and newer)	the arm64 .dmg
macOS, Intel	the x64 .dmg
Windows 10 and 11	the x64 .exe, or the .zip for a portable copy
Windows on Arm	the arm64 .exe
Linux, anywhere	the .AppImage
Debian and Ubuntu	the .deb
Fedora and openSUSE	the .rpm

Each release also lists a SHA256SUMS file, so you can check a download is the one that was built, and every file carries a signed record of the commit and workflow it came from:

gh attestation verify <file> -R ahmmedrejowan/tessera

But most people should use a package manager instead.

With a package manager

The shortest route on every system, and the one that keeps itself up to date.

System	What to type
macOS, Homebrew	brew tap ahmmedrejowan/tessera && brew install --cask tessera	works
Windows, Chocolatey	choco install tessera	works
Windows, Scoop	scoop bucket add tessera https://github.com/ahmmedrejowan/scoop-tessera then scoop install tessera	works
Windows, winget	winget install Rejowan.Tessera	not yet
Arch, Manjaro	yay -S tessera-bin	not yet

The last two are written but not carrying Tessera yet. The winget submission passes every check and is waiting on a moderator at microsoft/winget-pkgs#441739; a PKGBUILD is written on every release, but nothing is published to the AUR. They are listed so you know what they will be, not because they work today.

Homebrew 7 asks before it loads anything from a tap that is not its own. If it does, run brew trust --cask ahmmedrejowan/tessera/tessera and install again.

A package manager is worth preferring on any system: each clears the download flag as it installs, so nothing in the next section applies to you.

The first time you open it

Tessera is free software, and the builds are not notarised by Apple or signed with a Windows certificate. Apple charges 99 dollars a year for notarising, and Windows certificates cost more and now have to live on a hardware token; neither is going to happen for a free program. So each system asks once, and only once.

macOS

Double-clicking will say macOS cannot verify that Tessera is free from malware. It says that about anything it cannot check with Apple, which means anything not notarised. Nothing is wrong with your download.

The short way, after dragging Tessera into Applications, is one line:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Tessera.app

That takes off the flag macOS puts on anything a browser downloaded, which is the entire reason for the warning, and is exactly what Homebrew does while it installs. It is safe to run twice: it says nothing and changes nothing once the flag has gone. You are switching off a check, so do it for software you mean to trust, and the SHA256SUMS file and gh attestation verify above are there to make that an informed decision rather than a shrug.

Or click through it, which needs no Terminal:

1. Drag Tessera into Applications.
2. Double-click it, then press Done on the warning.
3. Apple menu, System Settings, Privacy & Security.
4. Scroll down to Security. There is a line saying Tessera was blocked.
5. Press Open Anyway, and confirm with Touch ID or your password.
6. Press Open on the last box.

After that it opens normally, for good.

On macOS 14 and earlier there is a shorter way: right-click (or Control-click) Tessera in Applications, choose Open, then Open again. Apple removed that shortcut in macOS 15, which is why the steps above exist.

If it says "Tessera is damaged" instead, the download itself was flagged on the way in rather than the signature going unrecognised. The same line clears it.

Windows

SmartScreen says "Windows protected your PC".

1. Choose More info.
2. Choose Run anyway.

The same idea as the macOS line, in PowerShell before you run the installer:

Unblock-File .\Tessera-win-x64.exe

That takes off the mark Windows puts on a downloaded file, which is what SmartScreen reacts to, so the prompt usually does not appear at all. A publisher it has never heard of can still be questioned, and More info then Run anyway always works.

Linux

The AppImage needs to be made executable: chmod +x Tessera-*.AppImage, then run it. The .deb installs with sudo dpkg -i tessera_*.deb or your usual package tool.

Updating

Tessera checks for a newer version and tells you; it never installs anything by itself. Help, then About, has the check and the link. Your library is untouched by an update.

Uninstalling

Delete the app. Your library is your own folder and stays exactly where it is; Tessera's own data (the index, previews, settings) lives in the usual place for your system and can be deleted too.

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Tessera
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Tessera
• Linux: ~/.config/Tessera